Vegetable Beds Update

Between the last post and this one (early last week?), we got a ton of rain.  I can't recall the exact numbers, but somewhere around 11 or 12 inches, I think, in about a 24-hour period.

We're lucky that most of our yard drains pretty quickly-- due more to sloping than to soil quality (because we have our share of heavy clay), but we'll take what we can get.  ;o)

We didn't have too much standing water, but there were a few puddles and maybe one spot of very slight erosion (on the corner of the pad where the grass and even weeds haven't really taken hold).  The worst damage (evident so far, at least) was to some newly planted daylily seeds.  I'm afraid that some of them washed around a bit.  I tried to repair the damage, but I'm a little skeptical.  If we try again next year, I'll consider putting them in pots, instead of directly in the ground.  (Might've done that this year, but it was already kind of late in the season, and I thought they might be prone to drying out in pots.)

Here's the place we planted the seeds.  (A handful did get put into pots.  I'm hoping we'll get at least a few plants to sprout!  I'd love to have more varieties of daylilies...)

The twine is to keep the dogs from digging up the bare soil.  Once they've had a chance to spout and grow a little, I'll put down some mulch and remove the ugly protective barrier.

That's the night-blooming jasmine in the back.  We're still waiting for it to bloom.  I think it's more likely in mid-to-late summer.

The terra-cotta pots have morning glories in them.  Our first batch of morning glories all withered away.  (I think a late cold spell killed them.  Evidently the plastic pots we covered them with wasn't enough protection.)  This new batch is doing much better.  They're the Grandpa Ott variety, which is a really dark, rich purple.  Should be pretty, if we can get them to bloom.  (Last year, our morning glories bloomed very late in the season.)

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Here are the latest photos of our raised vegetable beds. First, the original bed:

Above: Snowpeas, chives, broccoli. 

Yellow squash and zucchini. 

Then the new bed:

Dill, okra (in need of thinning), and tomatoes.  (Also some barely-visible lettuce and bunching onion seedlings-- and a couple of pepper seedlings, in the back, from seeds.  We'll see if they ever catch up to the larger pre-started plants we bought later...)

Tomatoes.  (Donald has since put cages around all of them.  We want to remember to do that earlier next year, to make the job easier.  This time, we simply didn't have the cages on hand, and the tomatoes grew fast.)

More tomatoes.  (And bunching onion and chive seedlings in the small cells up front.)

Tomatoes, peppers, bunching onions in front, regular onions in back.  You have to really look to see them in this photo, but there are tiny, cute little baby peppers!  (A few early-- but still green-- cherry tomatoes are a bit easier to spot.)

Tons of chives and onions.  Swiss chard, mesclun, loose-leaf lettuce, and radishes.  (The "Black Seeded Simpson" lettuce is getting a slow start.  Though I've read that lettuce seed can last two years, the leftovers from last year underperformed, so I've re-sown that row with fresh seed.  It's coming up a bit sporadically.  The mesclun looks ready to start eating, though, so that's good!)

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I happened to read about "kudzu bugs" earlier this week-- something I don't recall hearing about before.  They're another alien invader from Asia.  They made their first appearance in Georgia in 2009, and they're spreading quickly throughout regions where kudzu thrives.  Unfortunately, they don't eat only kudzu (wouldn't that be nice!), but will make a meal of a variety of things.  They're very fond of legumes-- soybeans, for instance.  Actually, from what I've read, it sounds like they'll eat all sorts of plants.  Oh, and they're stink bugs.  And they can invade your home during the colder seasons.  And they can leave stains if squashed.  And some people have allergic reactions to their "juices".  (Gross.)

Well, this afternoon, I spotted some bugs on one of our "Little Gem" magnolias.  "Hm.  That looks familiar..."

Yep.  I'm pretty sure those are kudzu bugs.

*sigh*  Another darned bug to deal with, as if we didn't already have enough in this humid little bug-haven.  (~soft sobbing~)

Oh well.  I guess we can count on our abundant bugs as a reliable (if undesirable) food source, come the zombie apocalypse.  Maybe save the stinkers for last, though...

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On a prettier, less bug-juicy note, here are the latest photos of flowers around the yard:

Hover over the photo to get arrows, if you want to click through to other photos. :o)

87/365 - Bee Trap

Carpenter bees are real pests around our yard, so this year we've made a couple of traps for them-- one for the patio and one for the shed.  We've caught quite a few bees already.

44/365 - Spiderweb

Another rainy day.

13/365 - Leaf-Footed Bugs

I loathe these things.  They don't bite, but they're everywhere right now-- and they'll fly right at you-- and they're terrifying-- and they're gross-- and they can make a horrible stench-- and I just plain don't like them even one little bit.  Yuck.

Thought of the Day

Leaf-footed bugs MUST DIE.

Every last sinkin'* one of them within a ten-mile radius, if I had my way. 

Yuck yuck yuck yuck yuck yuck YUCK.


*(Figuratively and literally stinkin', I might add.)

Just a quick post.

• Trixie got her second round of shots today-- and her first visit to the vet's office. She weighed in at 5.8 pounds and knocked a few more numbers off the 100 people she's supposed to meet before she turns three months old. (It's a "socialization" thing. . .)
• There are some new puppy photos on my flickr photostream, if you're interested. One of these days, I'll probably post more than two or three photos at a time of something not related to Trixie, but that time hasn't come yet. ;o)
  
• Speaking of my photos at flickr, someone recently identified the weird white bug-things I photographed a few months ago. They're ladybug larvae!
  
• We're still keeping an eye on Hurricane Gustav (with Hanna also on the periphery of our attention), but so far, there's not much to say. We'll just have to wait and see. It's very unlikely that we'll have to face the worst of the storm, as it's predicted to come ashore in Louisiana, but we're still being advised to take precautions and stay alert to possible changes in the forecast.
  

More important stuff ;o)

When we played Yahtzee a few days ago, I rolled two "Yahtzees" of sixes in one game-- one of which came out all sixes on my first roll that time around. This is obviously an occasion worth noting. ;o)

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We found a nest of ground-dwelling wasps near the easement, today. Fortunately we saw it before anyone got stung-- and it's outside the yard, so there's no chance of Molly getting into it-- but now we'll have to figure out how to deal with it.

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Seeing as this is ancient (i.e. from August 2004), you've probably watched it and gotten bored with it, but we just found it for the first time tonight and think it's hilarious. It's probably only funny if you're familiar with the Lord of the Rings movies. . . and if you have a silly sense of humor. (g)

Anyway, here it is: Mashed Taters. (Boil 'em-- Mash 'em-- Stick 'em in a stew!)

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Of spiders, dreams, and "sweded" movies

We may have found our first brown widow spider, last night. I spotted it building a web in the kitchen window over the sink, which I'd opened in the afternoon. (Another brief cool spell. It's so nice to have the windows open! Especially if there aren't spiders building webs in them.) We couldn't tell for sure whether or not it was a brown widow (it was hard to get a good look at it), but it definitely seemed a possibility, so Donald did away with it. (Thank you!) Great. Another venomous pest to keep an eye out for. . . !

Maybe it's time to get out the general purpose de-buggifying spray. It's been a while since the last treatment, anyway. I don't really enjoy spraying poison, but I guess I'd rather spray small amounts of poison from time to time than have lots of bugs and spiders in the house. (Maybe that makes me crazy.)

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I've been clearing up some papers from this desk, and on one of them, I found notes about one of Donald's dreams. I meant to write about it back when it was "new", but I forgot. Why bother taking notes on someone else's dream? He doesn't often remember his dreams, and this one struck me as funny. So, the dream--

We had just gotten two new dogs, but each of them came with "issues". We discovered that the first had a warrant for its arrest, so we had to take it to the police station to sort it all out. (Can a dog have a warrant on it? I mean, I know that if a dog has been making attacks it can be confiscated by the law or even euthanized, but would there ever be an actual warrant?) The second dog turned out to be wearing two separate layers of furry "clothes" that made it appear to be different colors than it really was. Not sure why. . . Maybe it (or its owner) thought one color was more desirable than the other.

Well, I thought it was funny. (g)

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I was recently introduced to the concept of the "sweded" movie. To "swede" a movie, you just refilm it yourself-- usually in an extremely shortened format, hitting on various high points of the story. You can enlist the help of friends or do all the roles yourself. If I understand correctly, the key to a good sweded film is a very limited budget, cheap "FX" and the use of common household items as props. The sillier the better!

If you're curious about the name-- which, I'll be honest, is what interested me to begin with-- it comes from Be Kind Rewind, a 2008 comedy. The premise of the film is that a guy working in a VHS rental store somehow manages to erase all the tapes. He and some friends embark on a mission to remake the ruined movies using an old camcorder and their own cheap versions of special effects. According to the wikipedia entry for the film (because I haven't actually seen it myself), they tell their customers that the movies are from Sweden to explain the higher prices of renting them and the delay between request and arrival of the "sweded" film.

I think this sounds like fun! Definitely an amusing way to spend a day or two with some friends-- especially for older kids and teens.

You can find a selection of sweded films by searching YouTube. Obviously they're only fun if you've seen the original movie. (If you've seen it multiple times, that's even better.)

Here's one for The Lord of the Rings:



I think the best part of that one is the bit that starts about six minutes in, but there are several other "LOL" moments (such as the "barking" at the "Council of Elrond"-- it does kind of sound like that in the real film!). Note that some people think this one shouldn't count as a sweded movie because the production values are too good. (g) Purists! They pop up everywhere! ;o)

(On a tangential note, LOTR fans, have you seen this? I had to laugh, because Donald and I have actually discussed this before. Wouldn't have been much of a saga, but it does make more sense! Evidently there's a whole series of these "how ____ should have ended" videos. They even have their own domain.)

The first sweded film I saw was this "no budget", 5-minute version of Princess Bride:



The fire marsh and the "rat"! (g)

Well, that's it for now! Hope the week's off to a good start for you all. :o)